Reflexive Spanish Verbs With an Indirect Object

Reflexive Spanish Verbs With an Indirect Object Spanish often uses reflexive verbs  in a way that seems unfamiliar to English speakers. And they can seem downright indecipherable at when they are in sentences include two object pronouns of a single verb, a phenomenon that is unheard of in everyday English unless those pronouns are connected by and or or. Here are three examples of sentences that include two object pronouns that have different grammatical functions (that is, that arent joined by a conjunction such as y or o). Translations given arent the only ones possible; alternatives are explained below.) Se me rompià ³ la taza. (The objects are se and me. My cup got broken.) ¿Se te olvidà ³ el tomate? (The object pronouns are te and me. Did you forget the tomato?)La espiritualidad es algo que se nos despierta en cierto momento de nuestra vida. (The object pronouns are se and te. Spirituality is something that awakens for us at a certain time of our lives.) Why Two Objects Are Used You may have noticed that the three translations above took different approaches- but that none of the translations are literal, word-for-word ones, which wouldnt make sense. The key to understanding these sentences grammatically is to remember that the se in each of these cases is part of a reflexive verb, and that the other pronoun is an indirect object, one that tells who is affected by a verbs action. Basically, a reflexive construction is one in which the subject of a verb acts on itself. An example in English would be I see myself (Me veo in Spanish), where the person speaking is both seeing and being seen. In Spanish, however, it is possible to think of a verb acting on itself even when we dont translate it that way in English. This can be seen in the first example, where the most common definition of romper is to break. So we can think of romperse (romper plus the reflexive pronoun se) as meaning to break itself, (The translation to be broken might also be used.) The other pronoun, in this case me, tells us is affected by that breaking. In English, we might translate the indirect object me as me, to me, or for me. So a fully literal meaning of the sentence might be something like The cup broken itself to me. Obviously that doesnt make much sense. So how do we translate such a sentence. Normally, if a cup breaks and it affects me, its probably my cup, so we could say My cup broke or My cup got broken. And even I broken the cup would be fine if that fit the context of what happened. The other sentences can be analyzed in the same way. In the second example, olvidarse typically means to be forgotten rather than the literal to forget itself. And if the forgetting of the tomato affects you, you are probably the person who lost it, and the the translation given. And in the third example, despertarse usually means to wake up or to awaken. Without the nos in the sentence, we could could think merely of spirituality waking up. The for us is used to clearly indicate who is a beneficiary of the verbs action, although awakens us could be used. Note how in all these sentences, the se is placed before other pronoun. Se should not be placed between a verb and any other object pronoun. Other Sample Sentences You can see how this pattern is followed with the other sentences. Again, the translations given arent the only ones possible: Estoy agradecido no se me ocurrià ³ antes. (Im grateful it didnt happen to me sooner.) ¡El cielo se nos cae encima! (The sky is falling on us!)Pedid y se os dar. (Ask and it will be given to you.)Que se te moje el telà ©fono mà ³vil es una de las peores cosas que puede pasar. (Getting your cellphone wet is one of the worst things that can happen to you.) Key Takeaways The reflexive pronoun se can be used along with indirect object pronouns that indicate who is affected by the action of the reflexive verb.Se is placed before the indirect object pronoun.Sentences using se and an indirect pronoun can be translated in at least three different ways.